1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system and tools for data visualization and, more specifically, to a system and tools for generating a data visualization interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present invention, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
As businesses have become increasing reliant upon information technology as their employees, customers, and vendors generate large and increasing amounts of data during business operations. The data may include items such as data entered in a database by employees regarding customer relationships or sales leads, data entered by customers regarding new orders or feedback on previous transactions, or data entered by vendors regarding orders placed by the company. The data may also include manufacturing data, such as inventory numbers, pricing, quality-control data, equipment data logs, and data tracking work in progress.
Further, some data may reflect potentially complex interrelationships between other portions of the data. For example, a serial number may be related in a database to vendor data, inventory data, customer order data, sales lead data, and customer feedback data. Similarly, for example, data identifying an employee may be related to data generated in the course of work for which that employee is responsible.
Other types of data generated in various businesses include real-estate data, intellectual-property portfolio data, data regarding portfolios of assets generally, data regarding commercial property asset management, financial data, e.g., mortgages, accounts receivable, accounts payable, etc. These are just a few examples that illustrate the volume and complexity of data stored in many companies' databases.
The data often relates to the ongoing operation of the business, and analyzing the data in a timely fashion may allow business managers to make better business decisions. Frequently, however, the amount of data and complexity of relationships between various fields of data impedes efforts by those managing a business to quickly understand the significance of the data to their business. To this end, some businesses employ specialized data analysts or consultants whose sole function is querying databases and generating reports, for example using Microsoft Excel from Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash. These reports are typically tedious to generate, offer relatively limited understanding of the data, and in the event that the reports inspire additional lines of inquiry by their audience, another round of querying and reports is often required, thereby slowing the process of investigating the data.
More sophisticated tools for analyzing business data than Excel exist, but these tools are often difficult to operate and are often implemented by employees or consultants with higher levels of training and greater labor costs than those limited to use of Excel. The more sophisticated tools often include a more detailed view of the data that can include additional dimensions of the data displayed simultaneously or accessible through user interaction with an analysis of the data, but users often experience difficulties when selecting among a potentially large number of fields in a database to represent visually, e.g., in a graph or other form of data visualization, particularly when selecting which fields should be displayed on, or mapped to, which visual aspects of a data visualization to convey information precisely and with concision.
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. The drawings may not be to scale. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but to the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.